Colorado Avalanche fans have their favorite Patrick Roy moments, both from his playing career and his coaching. This sonnet celebrates what he means to the team.
If you’ve been a Colorado Avalanche fan for any length of time, you have a favorite Patrick Roy moment.
For fans from the beginning, we remember seeing him play with machine-like precision. He was a brick wall, the epitome of a clutch goalie. The bigger the game, the better he played. If the world rested on a man making a save in a hockey game, you want that goalie to be Patrick Roy.
For me, one of my favorite Patrick Roy moments is when he told his team, “No more rats.” To me this epitomized the type of player he was — so arrogant to state that he’d allow the opponent team, the Florida Panthers, to score no more goals in the Stanley Cup playoffs. So brilliant to be able to back that up with his play.
During one of the many playoff series Roy backstopped Colorado to victory, a sports cartoon came out in the Rocky Mountain News. For the life of me I can’t find it anywhere, but I remember it so clearly — Roy, in net, sizzling a flying puck with lightning coming out of his eyes. The captain read, “Boy, when Roy’s on, he’s on.”
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Roy was famous for having winked at LA Kings winger Tomas Sandstrom — thus enraging him during the playoffs — when still with the Montreal Canadiens. Make no mistake, that wink returned when he was backstopping the Colorado Avalanche in the playoffs as well — I remember watching it.
Some of my favorite Patrick Roy moments didn’t come during wins. There was the famous spin-o-rama, which included deking Wayne Gretzky. There were the times he fought Detroit Red Wings goalies. There was also that time he chirped Jeremy Roenik with, “I can’t hear what Jeremy is saying because my two Stanley Cup rings are plugging my ears.”
Patrick Roy has engendered favorite moments as a coach, too. Hell, he did so during his debut:
We all loved seeing him push over the stanchion.
He’s also been unconditional in his support for the team — even when they needed a not-so-gentle nudge to show more of a competitive spirit.
Sometimes it’s hard being the editor of a blog with several contributors. For the most part none of my fellow fans have called for Roy to be fired. That’s still true — and it’s not because I’ve stifled anything — but recently one of my longest-standing contributors, Will Radke, floated a question out:
Related Story: How Long is Roy's Leash?
I’m not into censorship, so naturally his queries stand as he wrote them. However, they rankled.
It bothers me that people can so-soon forget what this man has meant to the team. Are a handful of victories really more important than the glory that Patrick Roy brought to the team? Because be brutally honest — do you really see this current core of players competing for a Stanley Cup any time soon? And would it really be different under even an exalted coach such as Mike Babcock or Joel Quenville? (Oh, right, it was Joel for awhile. No luck.)
In other words, I don’t think the question should be how long Patrick Roy’s leash in Colorado is. I think it should be how long we keep thinking this team is comprised of winners.
With that said, I jokingly promised Will that I would compose a sonnet to Patrick Roy in “perfect” iambic pentameter. Well, it’s the off-season, and I wanted to try my hand at writing a sonnet — when you’re an English major, that’s what you do.
The sonnet is called Sonnet 33 for obvious reasons, but also because I used William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 33 as inspiration. (The text follows.) So, while the iambic pentameter may not be perfect, it’s from the heart.
Sonnet 33
For many a great coaching moment I’ve seen
Flatter the o’er young core with sovereign skill,
Keeping an even keel, though they be green,
Gilding young faces with his winning will.
He, permitting the role players ride
With lesser skill upon his fame,
And from youthful stars never abide
Mediocre, and for them takes the blame.
Even so one season they all did shine
With all the triumph of the glory days;
But out! One season did but make us pine
For the ice of number 33’s steely gaze.
Yet for him this team would have no glory;
To him owed rev’rence in the Avalanche story.
Sonnet 33, by Shakespeare
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.